Celebrating first job for students...

Celebrating at Krispy Creme donut shop

 This week we celebrated the independence of our eldest in gaining a temporary summer job through a recruitment agency to work in various employment establishments in Manukau city. In doing this the gaining of valuable employment lessons, learning important life skills and communication skills in the various places the agency has been a bonus on top of getting paid.

I've heard, in some spaces, that some parents shy away from allowing their children to be employed at fast food outlets, warehousing opportunities or other employment opportunities due (in my opinion) to their lack of understanding in the valuable lessons that can be learned in one's life than tarring their reputation of lowering themselves to these so called menial jobs which is very short sighted.

I started working at the age of 12 till around 17 years of age at my dad's former employer's catering firm and I'll always remember the valuable life lessons that I learnt as a pre/teenager whilst working eight hour shifts during the weekends which were usually monthly Friday nights after school till 10.30 pm and Saturdays from 2 pm to 10.30 pm.

The lessons included:

• not wanting to work in a job that I had to stand up in for 8 hours in which I'd come home with smoke in my hair and clothes
• I didn't want to work in a job that I had to wear a uniform i.e. a smock or hairnet (usually food related job)
• I didn't want to work indoors all day and needed to have some independence in where I worked not having to sit in one place or remain standing in one place all day
• learning to not treat people badly as a supervisor as I had seen in many work places where managers had power issues
• learning to have pride in the work I did and not take short cuts that would cost the company or people I worked with i.e. having a good work ethic which I learnt from my parents
• being careful when relating with people i.e. not get into the 'gossiping' group or hanging around people with negative attitudes
• being able to help out those who needed support in the work place i.e. usually women who were older and having empathy for those who shared difficult life stories with me as a teen
• learnt to arrive early to work and to leave after the work was complete or to make up for it in some appropriate manner
• I learnt that value of $ and not squandering it after having worked hard for it and also seeing how others spent their $

there's much more but those are some of the values and idea/ideals that come to mind and so it has been very interesting in having those conversations with our eldest in realising that these opportunities allow for one to walk in someone else's shoes in that these jobs are some people's livelihoods and may not be the perfect workplaces but they do provide monetary value for people.

And so we found ourselves celebrating through eating Christmas treats at 'Krispy Cremes' donut shop with our eldest's new found understanding that there are people who work in these different industries either as full time or part time employees who rely on these jobs to assist in their families.

It was also neat as a parent to see a certain maturity begin to form in these newfound interactions with workplaces and people whom one might not otherwise have had contact with. It was also neat to see a sense of satisfaction in now being able to earn their own $ without parental involvement apart from dropping off or picking up from the venue.

It's definitely something that I would recommend for our young people to experience part time or temporary work not so much that they can continue to work in such places but in order to see these opportunities as a way of understanding how the world works and the place that you wish to take within as an employer, employee, entrepreneur, creative, manager, innovator, investor, cleaner etc. a real eye opener...